Hard pounding, gentlemen: but we shall see who can pound the longest. - Arthur Wellesley. Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo

by Bill Levinson

Our relentless pounding of MoveOn.org’s tolerance of vicious hate speech at its Action Forum has apparently stirred up the Left to the extent where Jewish enablers are stepping in in an attempt to whitewash the beleagured organization. The Jewish Funds for Justice has, we assume due of ignorance of the facts, chosen to collaborate with MoveOn.org by sponsoring a petition against our efforts. Bring it on.

This came to our attention through Jewschool.

When the staff at MoveOn.org learned that antisemitic comments had been made on its open forum, they acted swiftly to remove the offensive remarks. The Anti-Defamation League praised their response, declaring themselves “satisfied with [MoveOn’s] responsiveness” and characterizing the matter as having been “resolved satisfactorily.”

It has already been amply demonstrated that MoveOn.org learned about the hate speech more than two years ago and chose to let it stand, and deleted only a fraction of the offensive remarks when it was exposed and humiliated in public. Robert Goldberg’s op-ed in the Washington Times shoved MoveOn.org’s face in its own hate-filled excrement and our reply to Eli Pariser’s pathetic attempt at damage control made MoveOn.org eat it. We have answered the ADL’s whitewash as well.

The petition continues,

“As American Jews, we condemn the manipulation of fear of antisemitism for political gain, including the recent campaign against the online movement MoveOn.org.

In other words, MoveOn.org and its adherents are now sufficiently desperate to have to find some Jews who will collaborate in their grasping-at-straws effort to whitewash an ongoing litany of vicious hate speech that was directed not only at Jews but also at Catholics and, to a lesser degree, African-Americans. In doing so, they failed to remember our assertion that we can smell organizational fear the way a wolf can smell blood. We are confident in our ability to read the opposing side’s fears from the way it and its allies react. The fact that this Jewish Funds for Justice has come out to whitewash MoveOn.org shows that we and our own allies are hurting MoveOn.org very badly. Reading between the lines of their petition, in fact, gives us at least a partial damage assessment that we find very encouraging:

For the past two months, Jews across the country have been exposed to lies about MoveOn.org. We need your support to make sure hundreds of thousands of Jews can see the statement in advertisements placed in Jewish newspapers.

Excellent; our efforts and those of our allies have been reaching Jews (and hopefully African-Americans, Catholics, and the other groups targeted by the hate speech) across the country and they need money to place advertisements to counteract what we have achieved with almost no expenditures whatsoever. The only inaccuracy in the statement above is that Jews are not being exposed to lies about MoveOn.org, they are learning the very ugly truth.

We cannot allow these attacks to go unanswered by the Jewish community, which is rightfully concerned when charges of antisemitism are leveled but equally concerned when false accusations of antisemitism are used for partisan purposes.

If the Jewish Funds for Justice thinks it can get away with an unanswered accusation of leveling false accusations of antisemitism for partisan purposes, it has made a very serious mistake and it will end up looking very foolish, just as the ADL has made itself look very foolish. This organization should realize by now that it has joined the wrong side of a fight against people who are not afraid to stand up to them and who will not melt like vampires in sunlight in the face of politically-correct drivel.

Furthermore, two Catholic groups including Fidelis have joined in asserting that MoveOn.org not only welcomed bigoted hate speech in its Action Forum, but published an anti-Catholic hate cartoon in its own name in 2005. We and others (e.g. Robert Goldberg in the Washington Times) already forced MoveOn.org to disable its Action Forum in the moral equivalent of a headlong battlefield rout, and we will not hesitate to take on this Jewish Funds for Justice group as well.

On a final note, our motivation is hardly partisan. We are supporting some Democrats in state-level races and we emphasize that MoveOn.org has NOTHING to do with anything that any decent mainstream Democrat would recognize as his or her beliefs or values. Our problem is not with all Democrats, it is only with Democrats who knowingly and willfully accept the endorsement of what looks very much like a hate organization. To reiterate:

POSTSCRIPT
(Found by searching on “Jewish Funds for Justice” and “Palestinians”)

It seems that “Jewish Funds for Justice” has a Discover the Networks entry as well. “In 2006 the Shefa Fund merged with Jewish Fund for Justice to form a new entity called Jewish FundS for Justice.” Furthermore, “During its eighteen-year history, the Shefa Fund supported …Rabbis for Human Rights; the Refuser Solidarity Network …Massachusetts Peace Action; MoveOn.org” and also Tikkun magazine. Judging from the company they keep, we understand why they are trying to defend an entity that, if not officially anti-Semitic, welcomed all forms of hate speech on its Action Forum.